My life in London (and its environs). "Delusional if rather sweet" – Samira Ahmed

Singing

Two thirds of The Leytonstone Shitkickers recorded a song last night. The verse and chorus don’t really go together, I mess up some of the singing, and we finish on the wrong note, but I’m really happy with the glockenspiel solo. The whole process of recording it was a lot of fun, with other James, our guitarist and chief Stetson wearer, heroically converting my shoddily strummed ukulele demo into something regarding an approximation of an actual song.

The song’s about a girl called Emily, who I hitchhiked to Dublin with ten years ago*. I thought she hated me, or at least found me deeply weird, then she ran up and snogged me over a year later, mere weeks before I left Coventry forever. I never saw her again, on account of not knowing her surname and thus not being able to stalk her on the internet. She had a lucky escape.

Listening back to a song you’ve recorded is odd, like most things you’re not used to doing are (in my case, things like sky diving, hostage negotiation, watching ITV, etc). When I sing covers I end up apeing the original vocalist, at least a little bit: I try not to, because it sounds ridiculous, but in some cases it’s unavoidable. But now, there’s no original to copy. This is my voice. This is what I sing like.

Great post (especially the never watching ITV bit). I agree with the comment on singing being about confidence. I have only ever sung in public once since my failed audition for the Tiffin School choir in 1990 (we were all forced to do undergo that humiliation experience). It was at a singstar karaoke party in 2004 and I only agreed to do it so as to impress Sara in front of her friends. I can’t sing to save my life and sounded awful, although I was compared to Barry White. That said I have never again felt confident enough to embarrass myself since.